


you are a study in detachment

by fab_ia



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Non-Graphic Violence, ONCE AGAIN kepler's thoughts are being explored like oh no they shouldnt be, avoiding acknowledging any feelings, dealing with problems with violence, kepler is having an identity crisis, secret hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24048964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fab_ia/pseuds/fab_ia
Summary: "he says his name. he says his name. it feels so, so wrong."
Relationships: Daniel Jacobi/Warren Kepler, Marcus Cutter/Warren Kepler
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	you are a study in detachment

he says his name and it tastes like salt in his mouth, like something bitter and rotting on his tongue. he says his name and he tries to fight off the shudder as it passes his lips, tries to hide how it still feels so, so wrong to be called that.

and his name in _his_ voice sounds so painfully wrong, sounds like a promise of violence and death and sounds like he’s going to end up six feet fucking under with a mouthful of wet dirt sliding its way down his throat as he chokes on soil and rot and decay overwhelms every single sense. just in hearing his name, the name he’s chosen, he can feel the claustrophobia of the coffin, sees oak on all sides when he closes his eyes and he pretends, he acts, he plays that he loves it and that he loves _him_ , loves the man with his cold fingers and cold eyes and cold cold coldcold _cold_ heart.

he drops the first name from everything except whatever legal documents are left for a dead man. he becomes simply ‘kepler’ to everyone except cutter, who keeps that semblance of informality, of closeness, as though he didn’t know how six letters could so easily make kepler’s skin crawl. cutter pretends that they’re friends, that they’re something past boss-and-subordinate, that cutter can _touch_ and _have_ and _take_.

kepler simply closes his eyes and pantomimes. he was never thankful for the years of acting classes until now, until his thirty-third birthday with cutter’s hand sliding up beneath his shirt, before he knew what carefully-manicured nails felt like against his stomach. kepler closes his eyes, and he breathes.

kepler’s bed catches the scent of cologne and keeps it, clings to it and won’t let it go. he changes the sheets as soon as cutter leaves just to try and escape the nausea that settles itself in the hollows of his chest. marcus cutter has no reason to continue existing in his private life, and kepler wishes that he didn’t have to see him in his professional life, either.

life alternates, swings, like a pendulum - one extreme to the other. either kepler feels holy, like he deserves to be worshipped, like he deserves to be free and spread his wings and get to a point miles and miles from florida, from the sticky heat; or he feels like scum and he relishes in every touch of cutter’s too-cold fingers against his skin, he lives for the blood on his knuckles as he recoils from a punch and prays that he’s broken bones, that he’ll see them jut through his skin and pour with scarlet.

his skin blossoms purple and gold, marring his hand and throat and face, violets on his throat and down to his hips, dipping beneath the waistband of his pants. kepler stares at them in the mirror, shedding his second skin and the cloth surrounds him as he stares at his body. slowly, he blinks, far from shame at his nudity in the eyes of god as his gaze falters and locks on the circles around his wrists. kepler closes his eyes completely as he shakes his head and brushes his hair from his face before he slowly, slowly, gets dressed again. picks up the mask and fixes it in place. he’s got a plane to catch. 

san francisco feels different. kepler smokes a cigarette out the back of a bar as he watches the man whose life he’s about to save, and the rainbow flag above the bar catches his eye with its garish colours. he can’t look away. he exhales, lungs burning, and he wonders for a second what it would be like to go somewhere _safe_ so often that a person could forget what it was like to be scared. 

there’s a contrast between them. jacobi flourishes in florida, comes to life, while kepler feels himself wilting and choking and _drowning_ and then jacobi kisses him in the cold night, on a tuesday a year on, and kepler nearly screams because _fuck_ , he knows what kisses mean, and he doesn’t want that, he doesn’t want -

jacobi kisses his jaw and says _thank you_ before he moves away and stares up at the sky, the burning and the trails of gray smoke that leave scars across stars, and kepler just thinks, _what the fuck_. 

**Author's Note:**

> on tumblr @sciencematter, writing blog here https://knewtonn.blogspot.com/
> 
> title from 'a brief attachment' by cate marvin, found here https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58820/a-brief-attachment


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